The easy new winter sun wonder that hardly anyone knows about

Detailed summary

Egypt's Mediterranean coast is transforming with a new resort that offers remarkably good value outside the peak season ...

I am splashing in water so clear I can count my toes, in a sea so turquoise it looks luminous. The beach behind me is powder white and the sky a saturated blue. My wife, Bridget, and our children, Laila and Ezra, are laughing with delight as foamy waves wash over them. The scene could have been lifted from a postcard, and the only question on my mind is this: where is everyone? It is October half-term, the sun is shining and we appear to be the only people on this pristine beach.

We are in Marassi, three hours’ drive north of Cairo, on Egypt’s Mediterranean coast just west of the Nile delta. To call Marassi a resort is like calling Harrods a corner shop – it is practically a small town, covering more than six million square metres and encompassing 11 hotels and six beaches, an 18-hole golf course, a mosque and a marina.

The Emirati-backed mega-project is coming to the end of its 20-year construction after the Egyptian government auctioned off the land around the 1960s El Alamein Hotel – a development estimated by some at $3.7bn (£2.8bn) that has not come without grumbles among the local community.

Marassi borrows an eclectic range of architectural styles from the Mediterranean basin. It has everything – except, around this time of year, many visitors.

Most beach-loving Britons coming to Egypt head to Red Sea resorts such as Sharm El Sheikh, but the north coast is a secret known mostly to Egyptians, who flee the summer heat of Cairo for the coast.By October, the Cairenes have gone home. To them, 27°C is practically autumnal, but for my family, Marassi feels like heaven compared with London.

We are staying at the Address Beach Resort which, like many developments here, has a private beach as well as a generous swimming pool and an artificial lagoon at less than £150 a night during the winter season.

Our days begin with a buffet breakfast before heading to the pool. The advantage of visiting in Egypt’s off-season is that there is no need to rush to spread a territorial…

Maras…

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